Over the past several decades, the frequency of antimicrobial resistance and its association with serious infectious diseases have increased at alarming rates. The increasing prevalence of resistance among nosocomial pathogens is particularly disconcerting. Of the over 2 million nosocomial infections occuring each year in the United States, 50 to 60% are caused by antimicrobial-resistant strains of bacteria. The high rate of resistance to commonly used antibacterial agents increases the morbidity, mortality, and costs associated with nosocomial infections. In the United States, nosocomial infections are thought to contribute to or cause more than 77,000 deaths per year and cost approximately $5 to $10 billion annually.
Important causes of Gram-negative resistance include extended-spectrum β-lactamases (ESBLs), serine carbapenemases (KPCs) and metallo-β-lactamases (for example NDM-1) in Klebsiella pneumoniae, Escherichia coli, and Proteus mirabilis, high-level third-generation cephalosporin (AmpC) β-lactamase resistance among Enterobacter species and Citrobacter freundii, and multidrug-resistance genes observed in Pseudomonas, Acinetobacter, and Stenotrophomonas. The problem of antibacterial resistance is compounded by the existence of bacterial strains resistant to multiple antibacterials. For example, Klebsiella pneumonia harboring NDM-1 metallo-β-lactamase carries frequently additional serine-β-lactamases on the same plasmid that carries the NDM-1.
Thus there is a need for new antibacterials, particularly antibacterial compounds that are effective against existing drug-resistant microbes, or are less susceptible to development of new bacterial resistance. The current invention provides such compounds.